Besides the foregoing works, lie wrote many valuable essays on British antiquities, at the request, and in com pliance with the practice, of the learned society of anti quaries, some of which have been published by the labo rious Hearne, in his collection of discourses on English antiquities ; and these give reason to regret that others have been lost, which would have thrown light upon those subjects. This eminent scholar concluded his services to the republic of letters, by founding a professorship of history at Oxford, for which he may be reckoned among the chief benefactors to that university ; the first profes sor being nominated by himself in 1622. He died the following year at his house in Kent, in the 73d year of his age ; and by his will, written by himself on the last anniversary of his birth, May 2, 1623, (an anniversary which, as appears by his diary, was always spent in charitable deeds and pious meditations,) he modestly di rected that he should be privately buried at whatever place he should die. But his executors did not obey his injunctions. They interred him with great pomp, in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey, opposite to the tomb of the poet Chaucer ; and caused a handsome statue of white marble to be erected to his memory, holding in his hand a book, with Britannia inscribed on it.
Camden was not more distinguished by his learning than by his virtues. His character is thus summed up by one of his biographers. " In his writings he was can did and modest; in his conversation easy and innocent; and in his whole life even and exemplary. When he was young, learned men were his patrons : when he grew up, the learned were his intimates : and when he became old, he was the patron of the learned : so that learning was his only study, and learned men his only soci ety." The high reputation which his writings acquired among foreigners, is both honourable to himself and to his country ; and it might have been in a great measure owing to the mildness and candour of his disposition, that few who have been so eminent in the republic of letters, have suffered so little from the critical censures of cotemporary writers. That he maintained a very ex tensive correspondence with learned men, both at home and abroad, appears from his letters and annals, which have been given to the public ; and such was his repu tation as a scholar, all over Europe, that it was deemed a great omission in a foreigner to visit England, and re turn without seeing Camden. Sec Biog. Brit. ; Bishop Gibson's and Smith's Lives of Camden. (A. F.)